By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Russian op-ed writers are intrigued with Donald Trump, who has spoken of improving relations between the US and the Russian Federation. But they want to know what the bottom line will be, given his equally strong tough guy bluster. An editorial in the Russian Gazeta.ru […]
IC Annual Fundraiser: Now more than Ever
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Let’s get this done, friends. I can’t do it all by myself, and need your contributions to succeed. Since 2002, Informed Comment has stood against lies and propaganda, against bigotry, against injustice, and for reasoned and fact-based public discourse about the pressing public policy issues facing […]
DAPL: This Thanksgiving, Time to Listen to Native Americans again on Climate & Survival
Revised and updated. By Juan Cole | — The popular story about Thanksgiving is an environmental parable that we would do well to remember today. It was a harvest festival in 1621, participated in by the 50 (out of 100) survivors at Plymouth Plantation and 90 Native Americans. Some of these latter, such as Squanto, […]
Will Turkey leave NATO for Sino-Russian Shanghai Cooperation Council?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan is talking about joining the Shanghai Cooperation Council as a full member as a reaction to his frustrations with the European Union. Erdogan’s massive crackdown on dissidents after the July 15 failed revolution has led to 110,000 people being fired from their […]
American Muslims & the Trump Administration with Juan Cole
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs | Video Interview | – – “The election of Donald Trump was a shock to the American political system and, in its wake, many are deeply concerned about what his ascendancy will mean for the civil rights of minority groups. History Professor Juan Cole, an expert on the […]
Will Trump bolster the Military-Industrial Complex?
By William D. Hartung | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – As with so much of what Donald Trump has said in recent months, his positions on Pentagon spending are, to be polite, a bundle of contradictions. Early signs suggest, however, that those contradictions are likely to resolve themselves in favor of the usual suspects: […]
CNN’s Chyron wonders if Jews are People, inspired by Trumpist Neofascism
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Richard Spencer is a rock star of the Neofascist movement that hides behind the euphemism “alt-right.” (Since they’re always going on about how manly white people are, why don’t they man up and admit their Nazism? Why hide behind weak tea like a keyboard pun?). Trump’s […]
5 Trump Headlines more outrageous than the “Hamilton” Tiff
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump is the master of misdirection, the techniques magicians use to get you to look elsewhere while they perform their sleight of hand. This weekend on social media was taken up with his slamming matches with the cast of the play “Hamilton,” who addressed a respectful […]
Is Lt.-Gen. Flynn Right that Islam is not a Religion?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The new National Security Adviser to incoming President Donald J. Trump, Lt.-Gen. Michael Flynn, has called Islam a “cancer” and maintained that it is a “political ideology” masquerading as a religion. He made this generalization about the religion of 1.6 billion people out of the 7.4 […]